Rapid evolution: Can mutations explain historical events? (John Hawks at CASW 2009)

The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin
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Published 2009-11-03
We usually think of evolution occurring over millions of years. But modern humans changed their environment 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture and the decline of nomadic life. And theyve been evolving very rapidly ever since. Genes for lighter skin, for example, are new and increasing in Europeans and Asians. Genes related to hearing are evolving very rapidly as well, possibly demonstrating that humans are adapting to language—or to the different sounds needed in particular languages. Genes that increase a populations fitness could lead to greater population growth, spread, and clashes with neighbors—as when populations north of Italy swept into territory once part of the Roman Empire. John Hawks is also comparing modern human DNA to the Neandertal genome, just now becoming available for study, to find out which mutations distinguish us from these very close relatives.

John Hawks, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor of Anthropology - University of Wisconsin, Madison

John Hawks' studies include trying to make sense of genetic fragments from different populations, and anthropological bone and tooth specimens, to show how humans have evolved during the past 30,000 years. And he attempts to integrate that knowledge with data from archeology and the historical record.

johnhawks.net/weblog
All Comments (21)
  • @BarefootBill
    Here's some evolution: When I was growing up on Williamson Creek just south of Austin, it was a paradise. Wildlife everywhere, good clean water and air, the sky was clear and bathed in stars at night, the flora was unmatched. Now there is very little wildlife, no good water or air, no dark skies at night, no stars and what grows is just a shadow of what it once was. What was once a paradise is now pavement, parking lots, stores and housing developments and our ranch taken away by eminent domain.
  • @CRIresearch
    Great great great talk John. Now I'm looking to find your slides.
  • @ohyeayea6692
    A great lecture (even if it is 100 years old) buggered by crackling volume.
  • @TRYCLOPS1
    Interesting stuff about that gene in asia about some part of the hairs in the ears? And yes, a good hypothesis is about adaptation of language... but we really don't know... could've been for hearing if a tiger was near by etc... who knows... And yeah, brains could be shrinking because we don't need to store as much info in our memory. We now store everything in paper or computers for everyone to access. Maybe there is some relation between written language and the size of the brain? my regards
  • @andrewlace55
    Think of how much human have evolved in the past 500 years, extrapolate that to tens of thousands of years and it becomes mind blowing how far we've come.
  • @lolabootz1819
    This dude is a god he made my life make sense he doesn’t mention the conspiracies behind all these one video here had me sucking in knowledge like not just his vids I’m takin good throwing out crap thanks for the enlighted
  • @jackiejones136
    Brain shrinkage could be down to our abandonment of night and distance vision as well as massive downgrades in our hearing range, our sense of smell. The growth of language and communication made us more efficient in our survival struggles, no more need for our Super Senses, we replaced them with teamwork. It gave our Brains a bit of 'Breathing Space' to rewire and become more efficient in their workings. This also left a portion of our brain free to explore the abstract, hence the development of Art, Music, Philosophy etc. Could be our brain is shrinking as the Influence of our our archaic cousins big brain genes becomes less and less active in the 'Human Pool' . Our histories hint that 'we' wiped out the last of our cousins, a crime we may be paying for now, as we fall further and further down the bottleneck and back to a Homo Erectus without the super senses.
  • @Andrea-br4gv
    Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were cousins! That is the reason there was Himophil..and porphil... In their gene pool. George lll was highly allergic to chlorophyll and he also sop here'd from mental illness. Commons also married close relatives. Perhaps that is the reason for extra chromosomes...Columbia SA has a village 40 mi from Bogota where all the people in the village are related to each other, and most of the have dementia...
  • @abstractacus1598
    Brain shrinkage? Well, I like the Woodley theory that we have been losing general intelligence 'G' by 1 point per decade since around 1850. This is masked by a rise in specialised intelligence but it's G that is the important thing. This loss can be explained by our overcoming of Darwinian selection i.e. effectiveness of medicine and nourishment etc allows spiteful mutations to multiply.
  • @Mdebacle
    Czar Nicholas ii was not descended from Victoria.
  • @timhallas4275
    So, 30,000 years ago we were genetically closer to chimps than modern humans by a factor of at least 4. Imagine what we would be today, if not for agriculture. I'm picturing the Native Americans, before the arrival of the European.
  • @spydrsns
    @ avenue pad Your not considering how statistical data can scientifically be used to prove correlation of how something can effect an out come. If you disregard this, then you shouldn't believe any statistical data at all.
  • @GaryR55
    The audio in this is horrible. It's only 10 years old (as of 2019), so I'm guessing it's from a smart phone?